Known coated printing papers which contain mechanical pulp and whose opacity is at least 89%, brightness at least 65% and surface roughness not more than 4.5 μm, include for example machine finished coated (MFC), film coated offset (FCO), light weight coated (LWC) and heavy weight coated (HWC) papers.
MFC papers refer to coated papers whose coating content varies from 5 to 10 g/m2 per paper side and which are used for magazines, catalogues, books, and commercial printed matter. The grammage of MFC papers varies from 48 to 80 g/m2. Of the fibre content of the paper, 60 to 80% is mechanical pulp and 15 to 40% is chemical pulp. The total filler content of the coated paper is 20 to 30 weight-%. In some cases, MFC papers also include MFP papers whose coating content is normally from 2 to 5 g/m2 per paper side.
LWC papers refer to coated papers whose coating content varies from 5 to 12 g/m2 per paper side and which are used for magazines, catalogues, inserts, and commercial printed matter. The grammage of LWC papers varies from 35 to 80 g/m2. Of the fibre content of the paper, 50 to 70% is mechanical pulp and 30 to 50% is chemical pulp. In un-coated base paper, the filler content is 4 to 10% of the total mass of the base paper. The total filler content of coated paper is 24 to 36 weight-%.
HWC papers refer to coated papers with a considerably high coating content. FCO papers refer to coated papers with a film coating.
The above-mentioned paper grades have the problem of high chemical pulp content which the papers must have to achieve the desired properties. The printing paper according to the invention provides an alternative to replace coated papers of prior art, and an improvement in certain properties of the paper.